


What They Left Behind

by semipeaceful



Category: Original Work
Genre: Angst, Death, F/F, Grieving, Heavy Angst, Original Fiction, Short One Shot, its sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26189113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semipeaceful/pseuds/semipeaceful
Summary: Every year, Alexandria is drawn back to the woods behind her old high school. Every year, she's forced to look at what they left behind.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character





	What They Left Behind

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as a fun art project done with my friends. We got three prompts in the form of pictures (a graffitied car in the desert, a typewriter in the woods, an old cell phone) and we all did something with our various art forms. I wrote this short story, where I explored the idea of man-made objects (in this case, a metaphor for memories) slowly being overcome by nature. Enjoy!

Every year, without fail, Alexandria returned to the woods behind her old high school.

It wasn’t a trip she looked forward to. Quite the opposite in fact. Her skin crawled with anxiety and cruel anticipation as she approached the edge of the parking lot, and for not the first time, she considered turning around, getting in her car, and driving in the direction of the nearest bar instead.

But she didn’t. Maybe she didn’t _want_ to do this, but deep down, some part of her _needed_ to do this _._

It was painful to remember. But it was even more painful to forget.

So Alexandria took a deep breath, tightened her ponytail, and stepped into the forest.

Her feet took her where she needed to go on pure muscle memory: fifteen steps northwest, stepping over the fallen log with the nuclear green ferns, on the tree with the creeping yellow moss.

Someone had taken a knife to the bark of the tree, and with one hand, Alexandria carefully pulled away the moss carpet that was growing over the edges of inscription. She barely registered the heart, the shaky _A+D._ She knew it would be there. Its visage was engraved in her mind, not unlike the bark in front of her.

It had been Alexandria, that _someone_ that had carved the tree, but the shy girl with the blade was leagues away from the solemn woman that stood in the forest today.

After fifteen years, the etching was still the same. Alexandria was not.

The next stop on Alexandria’s lackluster tour was only a few steps away, although it was more difficult to locate through the heavy underbrush.

There, buried halfway in the mud, was a rusty cell phone. It was a miracle the device was still visible at all, and every year Alexandria thanked the quality of those shitty cheap flip phones. The pink shell, although closer to a dead vermillion color reminiscent of dried blood, was crusted with dirt and grime, and a part of her itched to pick it up, dust it off, and return it to its previous owner.

Every year she considered picking it up.

Fifteen years later, it still sat, undisturbed, in the lush ferns and dark soil of the forest floor, in the same exact place that it had been dropped.

Of course, Danielle hadn’t _meant_ to drop it that day. They, Alexandria and Dan, had been on a walk and after one too many enthusiastic gestures, it had gone flying. They’d scoured the forest floor until the sun set and they couldn’t see their hand in front of their own face, but they hadn’t found the cell phone. Instead, they returned back to Dan’s car, accepting the fact that it was lost to the woods forever.

Dan had sighed and leaned her head on the steering wheel, muttering, “My dad is going to fucking kill me.”

Alexandria swallowed the frog in her throat and kept walking, almost stepping on her next landmark.

A scattering of crumpled old beer cans, the logo less a logo and more of a suggestion of the logo, a strange stark white contrast to the dark forest floor. It would have been impossible to guess what the cans had originally been, and Alexandria’s memory failed her on what brand of alcohol they’d drunk that night, but she supposed it didn’t really matter.

Maybe it had been a stupid idea to get drunk on what was essentially property of their high school, but Dan’s grin as she lifted the six pack of beers she had stolen from her father had melted away any of Alexandria’s hesitations.

Alexandria didn’t really want to get drunk that night, but Dan had, and Alexandria would have followed her to the ends of the earth.

If Danielle had let her, that was.

She kept going.

Thankfully, the next attraction was easily spotted. Splashes of gold dotted the verdant environment, tall yellow flowers weaving in out between the trees.

Dan had planted the first patch of them, taken from her flower beds at home.

“Imagine,” she had said, looking over the three little flowers with the pride of a newly-minted mother. “Years from now, we can come back and see how these flowers have blossomed and bloomed…” She trailed off, before continuing, with a wry smirk, “Almost like our love.”

“That is the cheesiest fucking thing I’ve ever heard,” Alexandria had said.

Unbothered by her reaction, Dan had tilted her head with a wide grin and said, “You love it.”

The thing was, Alexandria _had_ loved it.

Now, she wished she could go back and tell Dan exactly that. Wished she could more accurately represent the deep and inherent fondness she felt for the other girl. Wished she could force Dan to understand how much she meant to her.

The flowers had bloomed, alright. They’d bloomed and spread and overwhelmed and destroyed every other plant in their path.

One year, Alexandria had taken the time to look up the plant.

They were called tansy ragwort. They were pretty and hardy little flowers, and also incredibly toxic. They were an invasive species, and, unless someone came around to dig up every last root and bud, they would continue to take over the forest until there was nothing left but those pretty little flowers.

From her pocket, Alexandria drew out a pocket knife. She grasped the closest stalks and cut the stems.

The bouquet was lackluster, but it would do.

After all, it was the same bouquet as last year.

Alexandria tucked the small gathering of flowers into her jacket. She would need both hands free to scale the chain link fence, which she did, landing softly on the well manicured grass on the other side. She navigated the field quickly and efficiently, only slowing in front of a familiar pile of dried yellow flowers.

Kneeling on the cool grass, Alexandria set the old flowers to the side and began to work, pulling grass and weeds and brushing off dirt and dust.

Once the area was cleaned, Alexandria placed the bouquet on the gravestone.

“Happy Anniversary, Dan.”

The stone didn’t answer back.


End file.
